This thesis comprises two volumes, the first is the research component and the second represents the clinical component of the thesis. The literature review explores whether there are differences between the interactions of adolescent and adult mothers and their infants. The empirical paper explores whether adolescents' knowledge of attachment can be improved by the use of a DVD teaching tool and whether their pre-existing knowledge or change in knowledge is related to trait emotional intelligence. The third paper is a public dissemination document which outlines the research findings for dissemination to the general public. The second volume forms the clinical component of the thesis and includes five Clinical Practice Reports outlining clinical case studies, a service evaluation, single-case designs and the abstract relating to an oral presentation.

This study investigated the effects of family structure on 13-18 year-old adolescents in Saudi Arabia. Comparisons were made between adolescents from polygamous and monogamous families in psychological well-being (self-esteem, satisfaction with life, depression), bullying and victimization. A series of investigations assessed the effects of family structure and several demographic variables on adolescents’ psychological well-being and behaviour. Also, the mediating role of parent-adolescent relationships measured by parent-adolescent bonding and father availability was investigated. A systematic review of previous research established that few studies had investigated mediating variables, such as demographic variables. In the first study, comparisons were made between 98 adolescents from polygamous and monogamous families. Results found that adolescents from polygamous families reported more problems in their psychological well-being, bullying and victimization than adolescents from monogamous families. The aim of the second study was to establish the validity of the Parental Bonding Instrument for use with adolescents in Saudi Arabia. The parental bonding instrument was validated for use in Saudi society with 301 participants aged 13-18 years. Results found that the ‘care’ dimension of the parental bonding instrument was valid for use in Saudi Arabia but the ‘overprotection’ dimension was not considered to be culturally valid because of different cultural patterns found in Saudi culture. The third study compared 266 adolescents from polygamous and monogamous families using the validated parental bonding instrument. The results found that adolescents in polygynous families reported lower ‘care’ scores than those in monogamous families. Also, comparisons by age group and gender found no effects of age or gender for father care, mother care, self-esteem, satisfaction with life, bullying or victimisation. A significant difference was found between age groups for depression. The fourth study was conducted with 500 adolescents using structural equation modelling to test the role of the parent-adolescent relationship measured by parental bonding on adolescent self-esteem, satisfaction with life, depression, bullying and victimisation. For polygamous families, parental care was a significant mediating variable between adolescent outcomes and the family variables of father availability and the position of the mother as the first or later wife. For monogamous families, although parental care predicted adolescent outcomes, family variables did not affect parental care. The fifth study was a qualitative analysis of interviews with 30 adolescents and 10 teachers on perceptions of father fairness, family functioning, attitudes toward polygamous marriage and academic achievement. Problems reported for polygamous families were lack of father fairness and family cohesion, emotional and behavioural problems, and poor academic achievement. In conclusion, this thesis is the first study to investigate the effects of polygamous family structure on adolescents in Saudi society and the first to provide a culturally validated measure of adolescent-parent attachment relationships. It was found that polygamy affects adolescent psychological well-being and behaviour, also adolescents’ perceptions of parental care and the fairness with which they feel that their father treats them have important effects on their relationship with their parents, their sense of well-being and their behaviour. The findings will be valuable for educators, counsellors and psychologists in Saudi Arabia.

Text in Afrikaans / In hierdie studie word die invloed van subtiele ouerlike verwerping op die leefwereld van die adolessent aangespreek. Subtiele ouerlike verwerping manifesteer nie net in die afwesigheid van liefde en warmte in die ouer-kind verhouding nie, maar vind ook neerslag in fisiese-, emosionele- en opvoedingsverwaarlosing. Uit die literatuurstudie blyk dit dat ouerlike houdings, wat in hul opvoedingstyl weerspieel word, bepalend is vir die adolessent se belewing van aanvaarding of verwerping. Oorsake van ouerlike verwerping setel in ouers se agtergrond, hul huidige omstandighede en die kind self. In die empiriese ondersoek is die leefwereld van die adolessent wat ouerlike verwerping beleef, verken. Volgens die resultate blyk dit dat hierdie adolessente se relasies problematies is, dat hulle 'n lae selfbeeld het en dat hulle gevoelens van angs en minderwaardigheid beleef. / This study addresses the influence of subtle parental rejection on the life world of adolescents. Subtle parental rejection manifests not only in the lack of warmth and love in the parent-child relationship but also in physical, emotional and educational neglect. From the literature study it is evident that, parental rejection which is reflected in their educational style will determine whether a child experiences rejection or acceptance. Causes of parental rejection reside in the background of parents, their existing circumstances and also in the rejected child itself. The empirical study investigates the life world of adolescents who experience subtle parental rejection. According to the results it seems that these adolescents experience problematic relationships, they have a low self-image and also experience feelings of anxiety and a sense of inferiority. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Sielkundige Opvoedkunde)

This thesis examined the role of emotion functioning in adolescent antisocial behaviour, and considered whether more serious forms of antisocial behaviour (ASB) coincided with serious emotion dysfunctions. Emotional functioning in a community sample of 90 young offenders was assessed in three ways. First of all by examining facial affect recognition, secondly by assessing emotion regulation during an economic decision-making task, and thirdly by looking at trust judgments towards emotional faces. An additional aspect of the thesis was to establish whether an emotion intervention task could improve offenders’ recognition of negative emotions. It was expected that antisocial teenagers would demonstrate poor recognition of negative emotional states, poor emotion regulation ability and diminished trust of others compared with age, IQ, socio-economic status, and sex-matched controls. It was also expected that severity of ASB would adversely affect performance on these emotion tasks. It was also expected that a targeted emotion intervention could be a useful tool in improving recognition of negative emotional states. We found that young offenders differed from matched controls in terms of emotion recognition, trust and emotion regulation. However, an unexpected finding was that offenders were better, not worse than controls at regulating their emotions. As predicted, it was found that seriousness of ASB did influence emotion performance on these tasks: the level of conduct disorder explained emotion dysregulation, whereas offence severity seemed to explain, at least in part, performance on all emotion tasks. The targeted emotion intervention also improved recognition of negative emotions. Taken together, the results suggest that young offenders show specific, rather than general problems in several domains of emotion functioning. Moreover, the finding that 4 more severe ASB seems to explain variation in emotion functioning problems highlights the need to take a dimensional approach when examining ASB. The future directions of this research and implications for policy and practitioners working with young offenders were discussed.

This thesis investigates the relationship between forms of self-concept and forms of aggression in adolescence. The relationship between self-esteem and aggression has been inconsistent in research, with both high and low self-esteem found to be related to aggression. The first paper presented here reviews the literature in the field and finds that this relationship becomes clearer when self-esteem is conceptualised in terms of a dual processing model, consisting of both explicit and implicit forms. The relationship with aggression is strongest when high explicit self-esteem is combined with low implicit self-esteem, as it is in narcissism. The literature review demonstrates that because of this, narcissism provides a better predictor of forms of aggression than the dual processing model of self-esteem can alone. Implications for future research and educational practice are discussed, with a particular emphasis on the need for future research to investigate the emerging link between narcissism and bullying. The second paper presented here reports an empirical study investigating the relationship between adaptive (i.e., leadership, self-sufficiency) and maladaptive (i.e., the tendency to exploit others, exhibitionism, entitlement) forms of narcissism and bullying as well as the possible mechanisms through which they are related. We surveyed 388 UK adolescents (160 boys, 190 girls) using measures of narcissism, bullying behaviour, affective and cognitive empathy, and need for power. Results highlighted that both adaptive and maladaptive narcissism were predictive of bullying for both male and female participants. We found that this relationship was not mediated by either cognitive or affective empathy, but that it was significantly mediated by a need for power. The study highlights the need for future research to begin to design and test interventions targeting the bullying associated with different forms of narcissism individually.

Text in Afrikaans / In hierdie studie word die invloed van subtiele ouerlike verwerping op die leefwereld van die adolessent aangespreek. Subtiele ouerlike verwerping manifesteer nie net in die afwesigheid van liefde en warmte in die ouer-kind verhouding nie, maar vind ook neerslag in fisiese-, emosionele- en opvoedingsverwaarlosing. Uit die literatuurstudie blyk dit dat ouerlike houdings, wat in hul opvoedingstyl weerspieel word, bepalend is vir die adolessent se belewing van aanvaarding of verwerping. Oorsake van ouerlike verwerping setel in ouers se agtergrond, hul huidige omstandighede en die kind self. In die empiriese ondersoek is die leefwereld van die adolessent wat ouerlike verwerping beleef, verken. Volgens die resultate blyk dit dat hierdie adolessente se relasies problematies is, dat hulle 'n lae selfbeeld het en dat hulle gevoelens van angs en minderwaardigheid beleef. / This study addresses the influence of subtle parental rejection on the life world of adolescents. Subtle parental rejection manifests not only in the lack of warmth and love in the parent-child relationship but also in physical, emotional and educational neglect. From the literature study it is evident that, parental rejection which is reflected in their educational style will determine whether a child experiences rejection or acceptance. Causes of parental rejection reside in the background of parents, their existing circumstances and also in the rejected child itself. The empirical study investigates the life world of adolescents who experience subtle parental rejection. According to the results it seems that these adolescents experience problematic relationships, they have a low self-image and also experience feelings of anxiety and a sense of inferiority. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Sielkundige Opvoedkunde)

Summaries in English and Afrikaans / Text in Afrikaans / Die doel van hierdie studie was soos volg: Om te bepaal of daar 'n verband bestaan tussen selfkonsepontwikkeling en suksesbelewing by die kinderhuiskind; (ii) Om te bepaal of daar 'n verskil is tussen die selfkonsep van die kinderhuiskind en die selfkonsep van die kind wat by sy ouers woon. Die ontwikkelingsvlak van die adolessent is in terme van die ontwikkelingskrisisse volgens Erikson bespreek. Die liggaamlike, fisiologiese en sosiale ontwikkeling het aandag geniet. Die morele ontwikkeling van die adolessent volgens Kohlberg asook die kognitiewe ontwikkeling volgens Piaget, is bespreek. Enkele begrippe, faktore wat die selfkonsep beinvloed en die ontwikkeling van die selfkonsep van die kinderhuiskind, is bespreek. Veertien leerders van Abraham Kriel Kinderhuis in Langlaagte, Johannesburg en veertien leerders van Hoerskool Vorentoe in Johannesburg het ingewillig om deel van die proefgroep te vorm. Hieruit is een kinderhuiskind geselekteer, op wie 'n diepte-ondersoek uitgevoer is. Ten slotte is daar tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat daar wei 'n verband bestaan tussen selfkonsepontwikkeling en die belewing van sukses. Daar is ook bevind dat die kinderhuisgroep 'n laer algemene selfkonsep as die ouerhuisgroep het. / The objectives of the study were as follows: (i) To establish whether there is a relationship between self concept development and experiencing of success of a foster home child; (ii) To establish whether there are differences between the self concept of a foster home child and a child residing in his parents' home. The level of development of the adolescent was addressed in terms of the developmental crises a~cording to Erikson. The physical, physiological as well as social development were also addressed. The moral development of the adolescent was addressed in terms of Kohlberg, while cognitive development were also addressed in terms of the Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Certain ideas and factors that influence the self concept, as well as the development of the self concept, were addressed. Fourteen learners from the Abraham Kriel Foster Home in Langlaagte, Johannesburg and fourteen learners from Vorentoe High School in Johannesburg declared themselves willing to partake as members of the test group. One learner from the foster home group was selected for a in-depth study. In conclusion it was found that there is a relationship between self concept development and the experience of success. It was furthermore found that the foster home group had a lower general self concept compared to the own parents group. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of South Africa, 2000

Attachment theory describes the importance of the child’s early relationship with the caregiver and insecure attachment has been identified as a risk factor for adolescent self-harm. Research presented in this thesis aims to further our understanding of this relationship by firstly exploring whether attachment impacts on self-harm via its effect on coping, secondly examining how peer attachment styles relate to self-harm and finally establishing what role attachment has in the repetition of self-harm and other related outcomes. Study 1, an online survey of 314 undergraduate students,revealed that attachment has an indirect effect onself-harm through coping. Higher quality of attachment was association with greater reliance on problem-focused (adaptive) coping, which in turn was associated with a decreased risk of having self-harmed. Furthermore, poorer paternal attachmentwas associated withlower appraisal of problem-solving skills, which in turn was associated with an increased risk of having self-harmed. Study 2 prospectively examined self-reported peer attachment as a risk factor for self-harm over 6-months amongst adolescents (n= 4508) in school years 8-11. Findings indicated that insecure attachment at baseline significantly predicted self-harm at follow-up, even after adjusting for baseline covariates (school year, gender, previous self-harm and levels of anxiety and depression). Lastly, study 3 hypothesised that insecure attachment would be associated with poorer outcomes over 6-months amongst adolescents aged 12-17 years who had self-harmed and been referred to Specialist CAMHS. Attachment styles were classified using the Child Attachment Interview: a validated assessment for young people. Compared to secure adolescents, those with insecure maternal attachment were more likely to repeat self-harm and showed less improvement in problem-solving. There were no differences between the groups in concordance with therapy. These findings provide novel insights into the relationship between attachment and self-harm and highlight the importance of considering attachment when planning treatment and assessing the risk of future self-harm.

Child abuse and neglect is a significant social issue with long term consequences for affected children and young people, including increased risk of emotional and social difficulties. Models of the impacts of maltreatment outline a developmental process in which maltreating parent-child relationships affect the development of neural networks, which in turn undermine developing cognitive processes, including emotion regulation and social understanding, thereby increasing risk of emotional and social difficulties. This study explores a subset of these cognitive processes in a sample of adolescents in long-term out-of-home care as a result of maltreatment, relative to a sample of non-maltreated peers, including situation selection (conditioned avoidance and risk-taking), attentional deployment (attention biases and attention control) and cognitive change (interpretation bias), as well as aspects of social understanding (mentalising, emotion understanding and prosocial responding). Further, the relative effects of maltreatment factors, and the relationship between emotion regulation and social understanding with adolescent adjustment was also explored. Results demonstrated maltreatment-related effects in conditioned avoidance, risk-taking, attention processes and social understanding, and explored the relative effect of exposure to physical abuse on the development of these processes, differences in such processes did not appear to significantly predict poor or normative adjustment of maltreated adolescents. These results are discussed with respect to models of maltreatment, emotion regulation and social understanding, with implications for the development and implementation of interventions.

Cette recherche privilégie une approche interactionniste inscrite dans le champ de la psychologie sociale et du développement. Nous analysons le développement identitaire, les caractéristiques des relations d’amitié avec le meilleur ami et l’expérience de l’internat.L’étude est renseignée par 721 adolescents internes (261 garçons - 460 filles) scolarisés en Seconde et en Terminale dans des lycées publics (80,1%) et privés (19,9%) de la région Midi-Pyrénées.Six outils ont été utilisés pour recueillir les données : une échelle de l’identité DIDS (Dimension of Identity Development Scale - Luyckx et al., 2008), un questionnaire relatif au soutien psychologique (Mallet & Vrignaud, 2000), un questionnaire relatif à l’intimité (Sternberg, 1986) et un questionnaire sur l’expérience de l’internat conçu pour notre étude.Les résultats soulignent que l’amitié avec le copain, l’ami et le meilleur ami est basée sur la compréhension mutuelle et réciproque. Les résultats montrent l’importance de la place prise par le sujet dans les raisons qui président au choix de l’internat. Le choix personnel (choix de l’internat, choix de filières scolaires) s’oppose aux choix parentaux ou institutionnels. La construction identitaire se caractérise par une proportion plus élevée d’adolescents en diffusion identitaire qu’en réalisation identitaire et en moratoire. Nous n’avons pas montré de liens entre l’expérience de l’internat et la construction identitaire mais cette expérience est associée aux processus d’exploration de surface et aux identifications aux engagements. Les différentes formes de soutien et l’intimité sont associées au statut de la réalisation identitaire. / Our study aims to apprehend, in the context of boarding schools, the links between friendships and identity development. This research favours an interactionist approach grounded in the field of social and developmental psychology. We explore the identity development, the characteristics of friendships with the best friend and the experience of boarding school. The research has been conducted on 721 teenagers in boarding school (261 boys – 460 girls) in 10th and 12th grade enrolled in public (80.1%) and private (19.9%) schools in the Midi-Pyrenees’ region. Six tools have been used to collect data: an identity scale DIDS (Dimension of Identity Development Scale - Luyckx et al., 2008), a questionnaire relating to psychological support (Mallet & Vrignaud, 2000), a questionnaire on intimacy (Sternberg, 1986) and a questionnaire on the experience of boarding school designed for this study.The results underline that friendship with a good friend, a friend and the best friend is based on mutual and reciprocal understanding. The results show the importance of the subject’s place in the reasons guiding the choice of boarding school. The personal choice (choice of school, of academic courses) conflicts with the parental or institutional choice. The identity development is characterised by a higher proportion of teenagers in identity diffusion than in identity achievement and in moratorium. We have not demonstrated a link between the experience of boarding school and the identity development but this experience is associated with the process of exploration in breadth and the identification of commitments. The different forms of support and intimacy are linked to the status of identity development. This study, because of its exploratory nature and in view of the scarcity of other researches on its topic, encourages comparatives and longitudinal researches.